A furious Richard Cockerill has called for top referees to be given special coaching on how to police scrums.

Leicester’s director of rugby hit out
at referee Andrew Small after his team dominated Gloucester yet only won
17-12 at Welford Road in the Aviva Premiership.

Though Leicester were awarded 10
penalties from scrums and Gloucester had prop Shaun Knight sin-binned,
Cockerill claimed his team did not gain the proper advantage from such
superiority.

Not impressed: Richard Cockerill was unhappy with the referee

The former England hooker said Small needed to improve. ‘We try to be really professional and then we have to deal with that.

‘He (Small) needs to look at it and
see his faults and try to improve. ‘That’s the whole point of coaching,
whether you are a referee or a rugby coach.

‘If you get beaten I don’t mind, but I
want the rugby to decide, not the bloke in the middle making poor
decisions. They (the RFU) need to educate them.

‘And if they don’t do it right they don’t get a game, same as our blokes.’

Robshaw enjoys pressure

Chris Robshaw says champions Harlequins are becoming used to handling the pressure of being the top club.

‘It is a new pressure we have to deal with — going into everything as favourites,’ said the 26-year-old England captain, after Quins beat London Irish 26-15 at Twickenham on Saturday.

‘Last year we had a bit of benefit from the World Cup and people didn’t know what to expect, but everyone is aware of what we can do now and they have all stepped up another gear.’

No worries: Chris Robshaw (right) is happy to deal with the pressure

Henson nears return

London Welsh expect Gavin Henson to have finally recovered from a calf injury in time to face Harlequins next Sunday.

Henson, 30, has not played for nearly two months since he started at fly-half in the Exiles’ 16-9 win over Bath.

His return is needed to lift the newly promoted team, who fell away in the second half against Wasps to lose 34-15.

Ireland blow

Ireland look certain to be without former captain Paul O’Connell for the Six Nations. The veteran Munster lock, 33, is set for an operation on a back complaint which also places a doubt over his participation in the Lions tour next summer.

Try of the week

Wasps scrum-half Joe Simpson. He burst clear from a midfield line-out and ran diagonally across the pitch to outflank London Welsh. ‘My mum will have watched that about 15 times before I get home,’ he said.

Quote of the week

Brian Smith at London Irish. ‘I’ve been in one of these scraps before. In my first year at Bath we were in a relegation scrap and the following year we topped the league.’